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Would it be settling if I married him? If so, is it okay to settle, or should I hold out for some sort of great romance—which seems pretty silly to me at my age? And is there anything wrong with preferring your dog’s company to other people’s most of the time? ...Read More...

January 16, 2019

REVIEWS & INTERVIEWS

One imagines this first existing as a notebook, non-committal if tending toward provisional completion, then, as Stein might put it, becoming what it became. In his most explosive work, Trilce, César Vallejo’s more formally complex ... Read More

Since 2016, many journalists—as well as academic, political, and literary writers—have been sounding the alarm about the future of American democracy. The writers trying to shake Americans out of their manifest-destiny stupor are a diverse ... Read More

TRAVEL ESSAYS

Early one evening in 2001 I watched an airplane as it cut through the African sky leaving its long and distinctive vapor trail. I stood still, taking a moment to wonder what the view looked ... Read More

WRITER-TO-WRITER

“I hope you’re working on your platform,” wrote my agent last year after I sent a substantive revision of my manuscript. I had previously published three nonfiction books with small presses, but I typically spent more time following other writers on social media than promoting myself. That might not be … Read More

The question is a familiar one, full of angst and hand-wringing, one I often asked myself but never out loud: How do you do it? How do you become a writer? There are more questions contained in this question—Where do you get your ideas? What should I write about? Where … Read More

Almost anyone who has taken a writing class has encountered the sacrosanct dictum: Show; don’t tell. The late Wayne C. Booth, Professor Emeritus of the University of Chicago led me to question this doctrine in his influential book, The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961). I like books about rhetoric, so when … Read More

Editors' Blog!

by Miriam Camitta When Karen Rile, senior and founding editor of Cleaver Magazine asked for one of her editors to represent Cleaver at Philly Lit’s annual fundraising Adult Spelling Bee, I didn’t hesitate, I was confident; I was a good speller, I’d won my seventh-grade spelling bee. However, as the event drew near, I began […]

LIFE AS ACTIVISM originated from a need for action, protest, and solidarity. We began this feature seeking works with the theme #ResistTrump. Now we are looking for a broader spectrum of work with social justice themes. Submit fiction, flash, and nonfiction up to 1500 words. Manuscripts should be single-spaced. Submit up to three pieces of poetry […]

On Cleaver’s five year anniversary, we continue to celebrate with interviews featuring our senior editors. Grant Clauser is the Poetry Craft Essay Editor for Cleaver, and he also reads poetry submissions. His most recent books are The Magician’s Handbook, published by PS Books, and Reckless Constellations, winner of the Cider Press Review Book Prize. His […]

Life As Activism!

ANATOMY OF A MONARCA by Antonio Lopez Emerging from the quilted cocoon of the brown monarcas is an infant who in silk immigrant dreams, vuela. His oceili eyes painted in Kahlo’s autoretrato-frontera, a horizon ... Read More